Court dates for three accused of planning prison escape

WEST CHESTER ó Three defendants accused of plotting an escape from the Chester County Prison late last year appeared in court Wednesday to waive their rights to a preliminary hearing.

Two 19-year-old women, Sara-Ann Lombardo and Jemeela Rozier-Gage, were arrested in December for allegedly planning a daring and violent escape that officials said would have likely resulted in a deadly shootout with correctional officers.

Officials said two convicted murderers, Shamek Hynson, 32, and Saleen Williams, 21, were aided by the women as they developed a plan to break through security glass inside the prisonís visiting area and arm themselves with weapons from the outside. According to the plan, the inmates would then fight their way out of the prison to a waiting car and eventually travel to Mexico.

Lombardo, Rozier-Gage, and Williams all appeared before Magisterial District Judge Daniel J. Maisano at the Chester County Justice Center Wednesday, and all three declined to proceed with the scheduled preliminary hearings. All three had their charges reduced to one count each of criminal conspiracy to commit escape and aiding the consummation of a crime. Lombardo also waived a separate hearing for a related contraband charge.

Officials said the plot was first discovered as the result of a contraband investigation. On Sept. 28 correctional officers found drugs hidden in mail addressed to Williamsí cellmate, James Jones. Inside that mail, Hogan said, correctional officers found references to Lombardo, whose name was then discovered on Williamsí visitor list.

That led investigators to review recorded conversations that indicated the group was forming a plan, according to court documents. The inmates and their girlfriends appeared to understand that their conversations were monitored and often spoke in code, officials said.

Investigators spent days listening to hours of recorded conversations and examining correspondence in search of evidence that could prove Lombardo was smuggling drugs inside the prison. Correctional officers eventually found a conversation in which Lombardo allegedly described the methods she would use to send Williams the drugs, which officials said were tablets of Alprazolam, a prescription medication. Officials said those conversations also contained references to Hynson and Rozier, which led investigators to review correspondence between them as well.

The groupís plan was as daring as it was dangerous, officials said during a press conference in December. While the inmates waited inside, the women spent their time on the outside researching possible ways to break through the visiting areaís security glass. At Hynson and Williamsí direction, they experimented with the ceramic portions of automotive spark plugs, center punches, and a hammer, searching for a combination capable of breaking in, or out, of a maximum security area. They also looked into ways of purchasing a handgun that could be handed off to Hynson and Williams, who would then attempt to shoot their way out of the prison.

The last successful escape from Chester County Prison occurred in 1992, when an inmate named Jerry Warner, then 44 years old and being held on robbery charges, hid himself in a laundry basket and ran from the laundry truck after it had left the prison yard. Warner was apprehended some weeks later in Mississippi, where he had been arrested for committing a robbery. He was sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven additional years in prison after a 1994 trial.